Claiming their turf wars "have unleashed a wave of barbaric violence" across Long Island, federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced charges against 30 alleged members of three violent street gangs, accused of crimes ranging from murder to robbery to drug dealing.

The gang roundup, code named Operation Streetsweeper, took place over the last month, although it is the "product of years of work" by investigators, said Andrew Hruska, assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District.

The defendants included members of MS13, the Bloods, and The Murder Unit, and stretched from central Nassau County to Greenport on the far eastern tip of Long Island, Hruska said.

The charges include five killings, including the September 2003 shooting death of a 14-year-old Roosevelt boy who was riding his bike. Prosecutors believe he was shot by a Bloods member who mistakenly thought the teen was a member of a rival gang because he was dressed in blue, a color worn by Crips gang members.

In another alleged killing, a 19-year-old was shot by two fellow MS13 members who suspected he was a police informant.

Some members of The Murder Unit were charged with a midday shootout near a Greenport playground in March 2003, prosecutors said.

Other charges include drive-by shootings, a fire bombing, stabbings, robberies and drug dealing, dating back to the late 1990s, said Hruska. Some of the defendants face the possibility of capital punishment, while others could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, he said.

"Gang violence is a natural outgrowth of gang presence," said Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, part of a cadre of local, state and federal officials who gathered at the Alfonse D'Amato Federal Courthouse to announce the arrests.

"We do indeed have a significant gang problem here on Long Island," Spota said. "But we are prepared to meet it head-on."

Hruska said law enforcement officials did not have precise numbers on the scope of the gang problem on Long Island, other than to note it was substantial.